Fox News pundit Wayne Simmons prosecuted for allegedly lying about 27-year CIA career
He appeared on the US channel as a security and terrorism expert credited as a 'former CIA operative'
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Your support makes all the difference.A Fox News pundit who claimed to have worked with the CIA for 27 years is being prosecuted for allegedly lying about his career.
Wayne Simmons, who made several appearances on the American channel credited as a “former CIA operative”, has been charged with major fraud against the US and making false statements to the government.
The 62-year-old, from Annapolis in Maryland, was arrested on Thursday.
According to the indictment, Mr Simmons falsely claimed he worked as an “Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Officer” for the CIA from 1973 to 2000, and used his supposed career in an attempt to obtain security clearances and gain work as an intelligence advisor to senior military personnel overseas.
A statement by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia alleged that Mr Simmons also falsely claimed on national security forms that prior arrests and criminal convictions were directly related to intelligence work for the CIA, and that he had previously held “top secret” security clearance.
As recently as April, he was identified on Fox radio as a “Fox News contributor” and in a 2009 television clip, he called a senior politician “a pathological liar” while discussing CIA interrogation techniques.
In one show, which presented him as a national security and terrorism expert, a presenter claimed: “Wayne has done interrogations”.
Carly Shanahan, a spokesperson for Fox News, said Mr Simmons was never more than a guest on the network and was not paid.
At an initial appearance in the US District Court in Alexandria yesterday, a judge ordered that he be kept in custody until a detention hearing later today.
If convicted, Mr Simmons faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.
Additional reporting by AP